Understanding World Religions in 15 Minutes a Day

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1

What Is Religion?

Ask most people if they know what religion is and they will say yes. Ask them to define it, though, and you’re likely to get blank stares and some mumbles. While we usually recognize religion when we see it, definitions are more challenging. Most people assume it has something to do with God, or gods, but that’s not always the case. Definitions tend either to be so broad they’re unhelpful or so specific they omit or overlook certain religions.

In addition, religion overlaps with philosophy. Confucius probably thought of himself as nonreligious, yet his philosophical principles have been incorporated into Chinese religions. Indeed, when a philosopher devoutly follows a particular religion, it can become impossible to distinguish between it and his philosophy. Søren Kierkegaard, a nineteenth-century Danish philosopher regarded as a father of existentialism, had a deep Christian faith and wrote profound theological works. Nevertheless, philosophy differs from religion in that it typically does not involve corporate practices like worship.

One far-reaching effect of cultural diversity on a global scale is that disparities, divergences, and discrepancies are not only interreligious but also intra-religious—that is, within the same religion in different areas. An Ethiopian Orthodox worship service bears little outward resemblance to an Ecuadorian Pentecostal service, yet both groups share core Christian beliefs.

Further, because religion significantly impacts our worldview, religious beliefs and practices are highly interconnected with culture. Indeed, as with the philosophical, discerning the cultural from the religious can range from challenging to undoable, so intertwined are they. What outsiders may view as religious practice, adherents may see as simply a cultural tradition. Traditional Chinese people clean ancestral graves each spring; Westerners tend to identify this as a religious practice, while the Chinese think of it in cultural terms. In the same way yet in reverse, some non-natives enjoy attending Native American powwows to watch the cultural dances, but to the cultural insider these dances have spiritual import.

The English word religion comes from the Latin religio, meaning awe or fear of a god or spirit. Most religions do affirm a supernatural realm and include practices intended to worship or placate gods or spirits. But again, not all belief systems typically classified as religions entail the supernatural or even uphold its existence. Confucianism, Taoism, Theravada Buddhism, and Jainism are found in every world religions textbook yet are indifferent or agnostic on the reality of the supernatural, especially in any personal sense.

Even those who study religion professionally struggle to agree on a definition. The theologian Paul Tillich called it that which is of ultimate concern—perhaps an accurate descriptor but too general to be very useful as a definition. Anthropologist Michael Alan Park defines it as a set of beliefs and behaviors pertaining to the supernatural. While most anthropological explanations insist on inclusion of the supernatural, Edward Norbeck says religion is a distinctive symbolic expression of human life that interprets man himself and his universe, providing motives for human action (in Religion in Human Life [1974:6]). William James said religion consists of the belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto. Note that neither of these latter two necessitates affirmation of the supernatural.

Despite the variety, sifting through definitions does steer us toward helpful principles. First, one religion component is an organized system of beliefs. In some cases the organization may not be obvious to outsiders, but no religion is made up of random, unrelated creeds. Second, not all religions involve worship, but they do all mandate or at least commend certain behaviors and actions—corporate, individual, or both—that are related to the belief system. Third, a religion answers questions about the unknown.

What William James called an unseen order relates to how a religion answers what are usually termed ultimate questions. The various religions respond to these queries in an astonishing array of ways. Whether or not the answers are interwoven in a systematic manner, they guide people in thinking about what is beyond that which our five senses can perceive.

The foremost ultimate question is What is ultimate reality? For theists (primarily, adherents to Christianity, Judaism, Islam), the answer is God. Buddhists say the answer is Nothing (specifically, a void, or Nirvana). Secular Humanists say it’s the material universe, beyond which nothing else exists.

The next question is What is the nature of the universe? Theists maintain that God created it. Secular Humanists believe the universe (or the material components that comprise it) is eternal and has no beginning or creator (First Cause). Hindus say the material universe is an illusion; we think it’s real, but it doesn’t actually exist—rather, all reality is spiritual in nature.

Other questions asked:

What does it mean to be human?

What is humanity’s primary problem?

What happens after death?

From one religion to another, the answers vary as much as their outward practices. Clearly, all religions are not basically the same.

In summary, there is no single right answer to defining religion. For this book we’ll use this working definition: Religion is an organized system of beliefs that answers ultimate questions and commends certain actions or behaviors based on the answers to those questions.

An Extra Minute

Is Secular Humanism a religion?

Academic textbooks do not include it among the religions studied. Books that Christians write on world religions normally do include a chapter on secularism or atheism (though these are not exactly the same thing).

Why the difference?

Secular Humanists are vociferously opposed to being considered a religion, largely because most people assume religion involves belief in the supernatural. State universities won’t buy textbooks over the objections of Secular Humanists.

However, like Confucianism, Taoism, Jainism, and other nontheistic belief systems included in academic textbooks, Secular Humanism fits our working definition, has significant impact on today’s world, and serves functionally as a religion. For consistency, this book includes a chapter on it.

2

Why Learn About Other Religions?

In many parts of the world, people once lived their entire lives without even meeting a follower of another religion. Today, globalization, fueled by migration, politics, economics, and the Internet, has brought awareness of other faiths to most of earth’s population. Understanding the global village is impossible without some grasp of the religious beliefs that shape people’s behaviors, attitudes, and actions.

Religion is called a cultural universal because it is found in all human societies. Even secular anthropologists acknowledge that no culture has yet been found that does not have some form of religion. This universality suggests that knowing something about this topic is crucial to comprehending humanity. Even though the nonreligious today number in the hundreds of millions, the vast majority professes belonging to some form of religious system. To fathom the why of what people do and say, again, one must understand the religious beliefs that shape their worldviews.

The variety of belief and practice on the globe now is astounding. The frequently heard statement All religions are basically the same is based on the superficial observation that religion seems to be about guiding and motivating people to behave well. However, no one who has learned what adherents to the various religions actually believe and practice would make such a comment. There isn’t even common ground in another common misconception: All religions are just different paths to God. Religious belief is as much about the nature of God (or gods, goddesses, spirits, or other powers) as it is about how to reach or interact with this deity. In fact, many religions aren’t trying to reach any deity at all.

Again, there is significant variety within each of the world’s religions. Christianity has many denominations (with new ones springing up every year), and it is by no means unique in having multiple groups, often with significant disparities in belief and practice. For example, just knowing that a person is a Buddhist tells you relatively little about what he believes, as Buddhism has three major divisions, each with multiple and significantly different subgroups.

Further, international politics today is impossible to understand without some knowledge of religion. Friction between countries develops because governments make decisions without considering the religious beliefs of other nations. News media and foreign policy experts try to explain terrorism without knowing or grasping the religious beliefs of those involved (and founding or supporting terroristic groups is not limited to one religion). We may support one side or the other in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because of assumptions about religion. To be sure, religion is not the only factor impacting global political events, but it is a big one. In most of the world, people don’t dichotomize the sacred and the secular as we commonly do in the West, so elsewhere religious considerations are much more at the forefront of people’s minds in assessing political issues.

Also, religion has been the motivation for, and provider of, content for much of the world’s art and music. Imagine, for example, trying to understand Handel’s Messiah with no knowledge of Christianity, or Indian art without a grasp of Hinduism. Ancient dramas and countless more-recent plays and films draw upon themes that require some knowledge of religion to comprehend. Literature of all ages makes reference to religious themes and practices.

Some people’s belief includes a form of If it’s God’s [or the gods’] will for life to be better, it will get better without our efforts; if it’s not, things won’t improve no matter what we do. If a society’s religious basis includes a fatalistic worldview, then motivating its people to implement policies and adopt behaviors that would tangibly benefit them can be challenging. In animistic societies, people may fear making changes lest they anger the spirits who can bring disease, crop failures, or other calamities upon the community. We need to understand religious convictions in order to be effective in matters of economics and development.

Migration has brought refugees and new immigrants to communities far from their homelands, affecting not only major cities but smaller rural areas as well. In many cases, these arrivals espouse religions different from those of the communities where they settle. (Two examples involving where I live are the many animistic Hmong making their home in Minnesota and in central California and the Somali Muslims who have settled in Minnesota and Toronto.) Knowing something about their religions is essential to interacting and communicating with them meaningfully.

It isn’t unusual in today’s world to compare the best of one’s own faith to the worst of another. This is neither honest nor respectful. Comparisons must be accurate and must consider the whole of a religion’s teaching and practice. This book endeavors to present each religion in a straightforward way, so that a reader who is a follower while perhaps disagreeing with certain assessments, would say the description is truthful and fair.

An Extra Minute

Followers of different faiths sometimes use the same words but intend very different meanings, which can lead to confusion. For Christians, being born again is a positive statement about spiritual life, taken from Jesus’ words in John 3. To Hindus, it implies reincarnation, which they are trying to escape. So when a Christian asks a Hindu about being reborn, the likely response is, I’ve already been born again and again and again. That’s what I want to get away from. We need to (1) find out what people actually believe and (2) not assume words mean the same thing in every context.

3

Christianity:

What Sets It Apart?

Christianity isn’t a religion, it’s a relationship! We often hear this when someone’s trying to set Christianity apart from religion." Is it accurate? Is this the characteristic that makes Christianity unique? And if not, what does?

Based on our description of religion from chapter 1, Christianity clearly fits the definition. It is an organized system of belief and practice that answers ultimate questions and guides daily life. But why have we come to think of religion as a negative term in the first place?

Due to historical abuses, we tend to view it as